


Say Something

by 26stars



Series: Between the Lines [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Chapter 1 is basically just a prologue, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daisy knows, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Love in a hopeless place, Platonic Cuddling, Post s03e07, References to pre-bahrain Melinda, What else do I ever write...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the team gets back to base after subduing Andrew Garner, Daisy doesn't know where to start. Bobbi nudges her in the right direction. [chapter 1 is basically just a tiny prologue]</p><p>Post s03e07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, so I waited until ep 8 aired because I wanted to know if May was really going back to base with everyone else,but then ep8 just made me even more confused about the timeline, since Coulson and Rosalind broke off from the others and then everyone was back overseeing moving Andrew's pod together [...the next day?]. Whatever. This show hasn't been great with continuity lately.
> 
> I just can't stand the thought that no one's tried to comfort May yet, even if they're not sure how to do it. This was one glass of wine away from turning into a Bus-kids and Mama May cuddlefest. 
> 
> If you follow me, you know I have another series about May and Morse's relationship, which does NOT exist in this universe, but I am hanging onto the idea that Morse is old enough that she and May also knew each other before Bahrain, maybe worked together a few times.

Daisy wants to see her at dawn. She wants to see her in the training room, moving through tai chi like she always did, waiting for Skye to join her for their morning drill and any new training for the day…

And Daisy is also desperately hoping she won’t be there. Because the only thing worse than seeing May dealing with everything would be to see her actively _not_ dealing with it. Putting it away, boxing it up, labeling and shelving everything for…another time.

And Daisy doesn’t know if she can stomach that. Not yet.

She wakes up without having set an alarm the morning after they all get back to base, after the ATCU has secured the Inhuman named Andrew Garner and Coulson has left to… _whatever_ …with Price, after Lincoln has crashed comfortably in a room down the hall and everyone else has been filled in on just how much worse everything is, now that they know the truth… 

After all that, Daisy's far from happy to be awake at five a.m.

At first, she fights it, trying to tell her brain that _it’s fucking early and yesterday was horrible and I’m exhausted and just want to not be aware of how messed up everything is for a few more hours and May’s not even here anyway—_

But then she remembers that suddenly, unexpectedly, horribly…May _is_ here. And as much as Daisy wants to medicate with unconsciousness for a few more hours, she wants to see her old S.O. more.

And yet she doesn’t... _right_? She doesn’t want to see Melinda May in the gym on the morning after the latest Worst Day, she doesn’t want to see her pushing herself through pain instead of experiencing it…

So Daisy tries to tell herself that she’s relieved when she pushes open the door of the gym and sees not May, but someone else, seated on the padded floor.

“She’s not in here.”

Bobbi is sitting on the edge of the ring, her bad leg extended out in front of her and her hands wrapped around her shoe as she stretches out her hamstring. And of course, with one look, she knows exactly who Daisy really wanted to see.

Embarrassed, Daisy half-turns away, towards the locker room.

“I was just—“ She doesn’t know how she plans to finish that sentence, but Bobbi doesn’t let her.

“I know, Daisy, but she’s not here. She wouldn’t be. It’s too soon.” Her quiet words still seem to echo in the empty room.

 _And you used to think_ May _could read your mind…_

Sighing, Daisy turns slowly around and drifts across the space between them, scuffing the rubber of her tennis shoe on the polished concrete when she stops beside the red flooring.

“She and I spent a lot of time in here after Trip died,” she says quietly, knowing Bobbi doesn’t need more context than that. On the floor, the blonde nods, switching legs and stretching out over the other one.

“So did I. But this is different. This wasn’t May’s teammate; this was her husband.”

 _“_ Ex.”

It doesn’t matter, really, but Daisy can’t stop the syllable from slipping out.

Bobbi looks up at her knowingly but lets it slide.

“Look,” she says, pulling in her legs and rising to her feet with more grace than Daisy’s seen from her in months, “I’ve known May for a while. I knew her before SHIELD fell. Before Bahrain. Even before she was married. And I won’t pretend we were close, but I do remember the person she used to be.”

Daisy feels her own brow furrowing as she stares up at Bobbi. “You never told me that.”

Bobbi shrugs, looking away. “After Bahrain, she…withdrew. She disappeared inside a shell of herself for a long time, pulled away from everything around her—the field, her friends, her husband…She put herself in a self-imposed exile, and you don’t have to be a therapist to guess why. It took me a long time though to figure out why she never actually  _left_ SHIELD. If it was the cause of the worst thing that has ever happened to her, if she didn’t think she deserved any joy she once had from being in the field or doing what she loved, why didn’t she just quit?”

Daisy waits for the conclusion, her mind spinning from this flood of new information about Melinda May, but Bobbi just lifts her eyes and leaves the answer unspoken, bringing it back to the two of them. Her hand brushes Daisy’s arm gently.

“She won’t ask for help, Daisy, and that’s why it’s important that you make sure it’s there anyway. She needs to know that she’s not responsible for this. She needs to know that not everything she cared about is gone, that no one’s turned against her for any of this. And, whenever she’s ready to hear it, you need to remind her that she’s _wanted_ here. Not needed, not indebted— _wanted_. It may seem obvious to everyone. But even if she doesn’t realize it, she needs to hear it.”

For some reason, Daisy feels her cheeks flushing and looks away. “Look, Bobbi, if you know her so well, why don’t you—“

 _“_ Daisy.” Bobbi's hand tightens the tiniest bit around her arm.

_Stop trying to pretend this doesn’t matter to you, too._

Frustrated, Daisy turns away, shaking Bobbi’s hand off and stepping back.

“Until yesterday, it had been seven months since I last saw her. I thought she was gone for good, and then she had a day that I’m guessing beats her previous ‘worst day’ by a mile, and _that_ is the only reason she’s back. I wouldn’t…I don’t…know what to say.”

Bobbi waits quietly until Daisy finally turns her eyes back to hers. the other woman's gaze is soft.

“I don’t think she needs words today. Not yet.”

Feeling her heartbeat pick up, Daisy falls back on her last excuse.

“I don’t know where she is.”

Bobbi’s lips pull into a knowing smile that verges on a smirk, and she shakes her head, brushing past Daisy on her way towards the locker room. “She’s in her bunk. And I’m betting the door’s unlocked.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a week and a half to get this scene down.  
> It's 4x longer than chapter one...  
> Hope it's the ending you all were looking for.
> 
> There are a few tiny references to events from Part 1 in this fic, but there shouldn't be anything you can't guess at without having read it.

_I’m betting the door’s unlocked,_ Bobbi had said, and she was right.

In fact, it’s not even shut.

When Daisy raises her hand and taps once, lightly, on May’s door, it opens inward a little, the latch not even clicking. She wants to believe that this isn’t an accident, but she doesn’t have time to think about it for long. The world around her is stirring, other people starting to emerge from other doors on the hall to start their days, so Daisy pushes the door open a little wider and slips in quickly, before she can change her mind. She shuts the door against the light and seals herself in with the darkness.

She feels her heartbeat pick up as she turns anxiously toward the bed, where, in the red glow from the digital alarm clock, she can see May curled on her side on top of the covers, still fully-dressed in yesterday’s clothes. She lies motionless, her back to the door, her breathing silent, but Daisy is sure she’s not asleep.

 _Not after a day like yesterday_.

_Not when she knows someone else is here._

Daisy hesitates, her own back pressed against the door.

_It’s been seven months. She’s just been through one of the worst days of her life. She might not want you here._

“May?” she breathes out, the name twisting itself into a question mark.

There’s no sound, no movement from the woman on the bed, but Daisy tells herself she wasn’t expecting anything. Though her uncertainty lingers, she clutches at her understanding of the woman she once knew.

_If she didn’t want anyone to come in, she would have locked the door._

_The least you can do is try._

Daisy forces her feet forward, shuffling across the dusty floor to halt beside the mattress.

“May,” she exhales again, the softest of whispers, “is it all right if I stay?”

And when she still gets nothing in response, Daisy takes it as a _yes_ and toes off her shoes before climbing carefully onto the bed.

She curls onto her side next to the woman, facing her and discerning the curve of May’s outline, a denser darkness than the blackness surrounding them. Daisy wants to curl up against her and press in comfort, wants to physically reassure herself of that May’s really _here_ , but she knows better than to assume that would be welcome now.

Still, her hand drifts towards May twice before following through the third time.

With May turned away from her, Daisy can’t reach her hand, but she instead lays her own palm gently on the woman’s side. May might be still as a stone, but her flesh is soft, and she doesn’t flinch beneath Daisy’s touch or shift away from it.

There was once a time that their words didn’t need to be spoken, so Daisy lets the silence reign, testing whether that time of understanding has passed for them.

_If this is all I can do, is this enough?_

More still, silent moments pass, and Daisy gradually relaxes into the mattress, letting her hand melt heavily into May’s side.

_Then I’ll just stay here as long as you’ll let me._

She lies beside May, joined at this single point of contact, and remembers the connection she once had with this woman, remembers how easy things had once, so briefly, been for them. Between the Bus and the base, before the Temple and the terragin crystals, back when the hardest thing that had ever happened to them was a betrayal from within and the emergence of their enemy from the shadows…

_How could we have known that that would happen to us twice?_

She lies there remembering training and tai chi and strong hands shaping her into a strong and capable agent, remembers patient, persistent lectures and the quiet, exhilarating encouragement...

She remembers the time when her parentage was still a mystery, when the best information she had to go on was a haunting story from a lapsed agent and some mocking hints from a traitor in their basement, when her first real contact with a parent was just hours before a mist turned her to stone and she came out as something else… 

She remembers the first time she came face-to-face with Dr. Garner, just after her powers had emerged, remembers feeling like she was getting a glimpse behind the curtain at the person Melinda May had once been, imagining just how terrible Bahrain must have been if it had altered her so much…

She remembers the same hands that struck her, pushed her, and flipped her during training sessions becoming gentle hands combing out her hair when her casted arms were useless, remembers the cockpit and the training room and the constant presence of a woman teaching her how to stand on her own so that Daisy—well, Skye—could one day stand without her, remembers that same presence that always stepped in front of her and took the first swing at danger eventually leaving her alone in this room and walking away…

_How could we have guessed that we would be here now?_

_Who would have thought I’d ever look back at those as simpler times?_

She thinks through the past twenty-four hours, trying to fill in the gaps, trying to understand where May was throughout certain events, how she had solved the mystery just a few steps ahead of everyone else…yet as her memory brings her up to the events at the college, Daisy feels her heart ice over, feels nausea rise up in her stomach.

_It wasn’t really anyone’s best day, was it?_

_Lincoln should never have attacked Andrew. He knew what we were trying to do. He wasn’t out for justice; he was out for revenge. He brought out the monster._

_Coulson shouldn’t have brought Price along. Their men just became more casualties that Lash is responsible for now._

_We should have…_ I _should have known. I should have seen it. I should have put the pieces together, shouldn’t have let May leave without telling us the truth…and this is all because of my mother, so I know that this is all my fault, too…because wherever I go, things fall apart…_

And suddenly, Daisy feels May’s hand brush hers.

She holds her breath as the other woman’s fingers ghost over her own, still curled around May’s side, parting them and slipping slowly between them. It’s a small action, and the rest of May’s body is so still that it seems impossible that she is actually moving. She still says nothing, but Daisy can feel the softest pull, the barest tug, the kind she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been looking for it.

_It’s all right._

It’s permission.

Feeling her heart dissolving in her chest, Daisy uncurls her body and shifts over to wrap gently around May, fitting around her shape and pulling the woman against her chest with an arm around her middle. She feels May reach up and wrap a cool hand around her arm, clasping in a soldier’s grip, returning the embrace in the only way she can as she faces away as Daisy nudges her face gently into May’s hair and inhales the unnamable, familiar scent of a long-lost friend…

And now, pressed against her, Daisy can feel the trembling.

The tremors are echoing out from within the woman, rippling over her in shivering waves from her heart to her fingertips. No tears, no sobs, but disintegration from within nonetheless. After months of getting used to her powers, it’s strange to feel shaking that she’s not producing but she is nonetheless responsible for.

It’s horrible.

 _I did this._ _I asked Coulson to bring him in to consult our Inhumans, I got him involved in this, I brought all the pieces together and threw the sodium (terragin) in the water…and now everyone is dealing with the fallout of the mess that_ I _made…_

_Will there ever be a time that I don’t bring destruction to the people I care about?_

Daisy feels her chest go tight. A thousand apologies clog up her throat.

But May is the one who speaks first, a whisper threading through the heavy darkness.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

Daisy feels the knot in her chest get heavier.

_Of course she’s trying to own up to her own mistakes, to push the focus off the obvious…_

And Daisy can’t let her do that. Not today.

“May, please don’t,” she attempts, tightening her arm around the woman’s middle.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back when I heard that Simmons was missing. I’m sorry--"

“ _Stop_.”

The word quivers as it falls from her lips as her throat strangles any more words, barricading them inside.

And just like always, May _knows_ before she does, because she is turning within Daisy’s embrace and wrapping her arms around her as Daisy’s body curls into May’s like a burning leaf, her arm tightening around the woman’s ribs as she tucks her head down against May’s chest. She holds her breath for as long as she can, but she can’t quite tramp down on the rasping sob that comes out with her exhale, gusting against May’s skin.

“It’s all right,” the woman says softly, her lips moving against Daisy’s hair, her hand cradling the back of her head, her other hand smoothing gently down her back, comforting the one who came to comfort.

It just breaks Daisy’s heart more.

She clings to May like a lifesaver, holding onto the woman even as she begins to shake too, quivering as she tries to restrain her own pain. May's trembling seems to vanish in the face of Daisy's pain, cancelled out like a nonexistent negative. Her arms feel as strong as Daisy remembers, but the embrace feels so undeserved that it’s painful.

_How many ways have I hurt you since meeting you? How many ways have I caused you pain? How many times have you put yourself between us and hell and taken the worst of everything against us on yourself?_

_When May,_ when _is it going to be enough?_

When she finally raises her head, resting it on the pillow and staring at May in the muddled dark, she feels like she finally  _sees_. Sees the weariness, sees the pain, sees the hollowed-out woman that is simultaneously _here_ and _gone_ …

_This has to stop._

“When are you every going to decide that you’ve punished yourself enough, May?” she rasps out, and May’s eyes flicker up to hers. “When are you going to say this war with yourself is over and you can finally have peace?”

May’s hand stills against her back. Daisy slips her hand up to brush her fingertips against May’s cheek, feeling the vestiges of dried saltwater there. In the faint red light, she can just barely make out the woman’s features as she continues, murmuring into the darkness.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened for me to see that whatever you did in Bahrain, you think it’s unforgivable. You don’t think you deserve anything good this world can give you. And this pain that it keeps handing you…you think you deserve that too. What I want to know is… _Do you really not think anyone else gets a say in that?”_

May lowers her head, shifting beneath Daisy’s chin in a blatant attempt to get away from her gaze, slipping out from beneath Daisy’s hand but not pulling away…so Daisy keeps talking with her cheek pressed against May’s hair, filling the silence as long as it lasts, laying out the evidence before her.

“You want to save us from experiencing the pain you’ve been through? You want to keep us safe? I get that. But I also think you want to pour as much punishment on yourself as you can because you think it’s what you deserve. You stepped in front of Lincoln to protect him, sure, but then you also fired the gun at Andrew yourself. You offered to do the same thing for me on the ship with Jiaying…you said you’d done it before…You keep trying to hold us back from the hell around us, or to hold back hell itself. Aren’t you tired, May? Hasn’t it been enough yet?”

A long, haunting breath of silence stretches before May replies, her whispered words ghosting over Daisy’s neck.

“I offered to let him kill me, didn’t I?”

_Oh, May._

The words chill her, and Daisy’s arms tighten around May. Inside, her fractured heart crumbles further.

“I know what kind of person you are, May—you’re a protector, through and through. That’s why you never left SHIELD after Bahrain, isn’t it? You didn’t think you deserved the field anymore, but you couldn’t live with yourself if you didn’t keep doing something to save the world for the rest of us. You’re still trying. You let yourself leave, but you’re back because it can’t stop _mattering_ to you. But you can’t give yourself a life sentence or death sentence and think that no one is going to contest it. You mean too much to everyone. You are not a sad story. You’re the hero in more than one of ours.”

It’s only when she stops talking she hears the sniffling.

She can feel the woman’s tears bleeding through her t-shirt, a barely-clotted wound scraped open anew, and Daisy can only hold her tight, returning the favor, being the solid presence that the waves break against.

_As long as you heard me._

_As long as you know I understand._

They stay curled together for a long time, wrapped around each other in darkness, tethering each other to the surface as the heaviness of reality settles on them, pressing out the pain in any way they let it. Slowly, May quiets again, remaining tucked beneath Daisy’s chin.

_Everything is changing._

_Again._

_Because of something I did._

_Again._

“I’m sorry,” Daisy hears herself whispering against May’s hair, “I’m so, so sorry…”

May reaches up and lays her hand against Daisy’s cheek, her thumb brushing gently over her lips.

“If I’m not allowed to do that, then neither are you,” the woman whispers, raising her head to stare her down with the familiar graveness that just makes Daisy smile, then press a tiny kiss against May’s thumb before she pulls it away.

May starts to shift away from her, and Daisy makes herself let go, but May just sits up and tugs at the top of the duvet beneath them.

"It's still so cold in here."

_But let's stay._

Daisy's lips pull into a sad smile as she sits up too, and they climb beneath the blankets together. They end up beside each other with Daisy beneath May’s arm, her arm across her ribs and head resting on May’s shoulder. It’s not the first time they’ve lain in May’s bed like this, but the last time feels like another era already.

_Who would have thought we’d see those days as simpler times?_

“Will you go with them to the ATCU today?” Daisy finally asks, dispelling the quiet with the worst question first.

_Are you going to watch them put Andrew away?_

Above her, May nods once, her cheek dragging along Daisy’s forehead.

_Might as well accept reality in person._

_But then what?_

“I know you probably aren’t ready to think about more than today,” Daisy begins slowly. _I know you don’t want to hear this now._ “…But I don’t want to see you come back to SHIELD just because you feel like you don’t deserve to be anywhere else.”

Beneath her, May is unnaturally still, and Daisy tightens her grip on her.

“You mean a lot to me, May. A lot. And of course I want you to stay…I wanted you back before you’d even left…but I made peace with you being wherever made you happy, because I wanted to see you be good to yourself. Don’t make yourself stay just because you feel like you owe us something for any part you think you played in this. Don’t sentence yourself to this.”

May is quiet for a long time, her breaths getting longer, and Daisy almost thinks May might be about to drop off to sleep when the woman finally replies,

“I need to see this finished. All of it. You’re right, Sk—Daisy, I can’t walk away. I couldn’t, even before all this happened. But now, I need to see closure—with Andrew, with Ward, with HYDRA, with protecting Inhumans or protecting the world...I _am_ tired. But I also know I’ll never be able to rest until this is done.”

Daisy closes her eyes, feeling silent tears slip down her cheeks, and then May is reaching up, brushing them gently away.

“You can’t give your life for this,” Daisy says feebly. It’s a weak admonition, and she knows it. _Every agent has already taken on the possibility of giving everything for this job. I mean, look at Coulson…_

May just shakes her head against Daisy’s hair. “I could say the same to you.”

Daisy sighs. “You know I didn’t have a life before SHIELD. I wouldn’t have a life without it. You, though…”

“It’s gone now,” May interrupts quietly, a statement that sounds like a door closing. “I can only go forward.”

_Then in that case…_

Daisy raises her head, finds May’s cheek with her fingertips, and holds the woman’s gaze hard against her own.

“We're going with you, you know. All of us, to wherever it ends. Nobody will hold you back from doing what you have to do, but I love you too much to let you try to do it alone.”

And Daisy doesn’t know if those words make much sense, but May seems to understand anyway because she just tips her head and kisses Daisy’s forehead softly, then turns her head and rests her cheek there. Her arms remain strong around her, one hand combing gently through hair that was much longer when she left, the other strong around her shoulder. Daisy presses her ear to May’s chest and listens to the reassuring metronome, listens to the sound of someone who hasn’t given up but hasn’t given everything yet, who _never will_ give everything if Daisy has anything to say about it. She settles heavily against the woman until she feels the arms around her turn heavy in response, until she hears May’s breathing stretch out to the sustained repetition of sleep, and Daisy knows it’s not the answer, but it’s a start.

She closes her eyes and sees in her mind a picture of a bird finally letting itself come down, finally letting her feet touch the earth, finally letting herself rest.

Soon, they’ll have to get up and face the day. Soon, they’ll have to open the door and let light and reality in, have to square their shoulders and be the agents they signed up to be. But for now, Daisy knows they just need to do this.

Just stop.

Just rest.

And then go on, together.


End file.
